As Americans fall victim to layoffs and downsizing, they're flocking to career fairs, causing long lines and exhausting hiring managers whose booths are overflowing with candidates. Automakers, brokerages, retailers, airlines, home builders, banks, newspapers and countless other ailing industries are slashing staff. If you haven't lost your job yet, it could disappear tomorrow. Getting ready for your next career transition should be part of your workday schedule today. Be smart about how you approach looking for a new job because you could very easily shoot yourself in the foot by not implementing an effective job hunting strategy. For why career fairs don't work for executives, go to: http://coachingtip.blogs.com/coaching_tip/2008/10/do-career-fairs.html
While 95 percent of 2,521 American workers believe women have made important advancements in the workplace over the last ten years, 86 percent also believe that the glass ceiling is still in place, according to the Women in the Workplace survey by Harris Interactive, Rochester, NY.
If you're feeling incapable as a woman in the workplace these days,you're not alone.
A poll by Roper Public Affairs shows that three out of five women working in the high-tech industry want to leave because of a perceived glass ceiling- a perception that they are less knowledgeable and qualified than men. At a time when 50.3% of all managers and professionals are female, women still comprise fewer than 2% of Fortune 1,000 CEOs and just 7.9% of Fortune 500 top earners. The glass ceiling remains unbroken.
Since the culture at most companies has been shaped over time by male executives, women are at a disadvantage when it comes to gender-based differences in communication styles.
A report, "Women and Men in U.S. Corporate Leadership: Same Workplace, Different Realities?", by Catalyst found that 81% of women said that "adopting a style with which male managers are comfortable" is an important or very important strategy to advance one's career.
Communication styles rooted in childhood training or unconscious beliefs can be tough to change. A first step is becoming aware of how you talk at work.
There is an emotional component in all of our interpersonal dealings and expressing emotion at work is one of the trickiest workplace issues.
While your cognitive intelligence often plays a stronger role in helping you get hired, it is your 'emotional intelligence' that determines where you end up in your career.
Emotional intelligence is simply your capacity to deal effectively with your own and others' emotions. In the workplace, it can determine how confident you are, how well you take the initiative, how effective a team player you are, and how well you handle
conflicts.
Getting honest feedback from people around you to develop a profile of your perceived strengths and weaknesses is a way to begin increasing your emotional intelligence.
Most of us try to persuade by using our best arguments, best data, logical flow charts and rationality to generate the thinking, decisions and actions we seek. Business leaders still believe everyone relies heavily on logic and reason to make decisions. We’ve traditionally believed that emotion wreaks havoc on rationality, especially in business.As science evolves, we’re starting to realize that emotions come first. Not only do they guide our decisions and actions, but we’re incapable of making decisions without them.We use the emotional parts of our brain to make rational decisions. Emotional context helps us make the best choices, often in a split second, long before the rational centers of the brain are even activated.
Many female executives are "getting lost in the leadership labyrinth."
No matter what you call it, the problem of gender inequality persists, but today more corporate leaders and employment consultants are offering programs to help women finally reach their goals. Mentoringand coaching is crucial for women who need to see how others have navigated their way through the leadership labyrinth.
With Baby Boomers filling most executive ranks and with qualified replacements increasingly scarce, an aggressive focus on talent management may be the only solution to an impending talent crisis. Over 15 years, workplaces will shift to a new generation of leaders. This poses a profound management problem....as Generation X succeeds the Boomer Generation.
Gen X managers, especially women managers, have been poorly mentored by their organizations to assume the responsibilities they will inherit. The boomers have not been good about sharing their knowledge and experience; Gen X has not been good about tapping into it.
Since the culture at most companies has been shaped over time by male executives, women are at a disadvantage when it comes to gender-based differences in communication styles. However, these cultural disadvantages can be reversed when women executives learn how to think and act in concert with the existing corporate culture by seeking the help of a mentor or executive coach.
In a study of 500 women conducted by Shapiro Barash, a gender-studies professor at Marymount Manhattan College, 70% felt that male bosses treated them better than female bosses did. Also, 65% of the women over age 50 admitted that they'd prefer to mentor women in their 20s instead of women in their late 30s or 40s.
The reason? A female Baby Boomer is often uncomfortable helping a woman "who might get her job next," says Professor Barash. Her research is detailed in a new book about women and rivalry, "Tripping the Prom Queen."
It's dangerous for men to weigh in on women's professional dress. To be sure, many people hate dress codes, no matter who imparts the information.
When it comes to setting and enforcing dress codes in the workplace, it isn't the message but the messenger. What might sound like a mentor's advice coming from a woman can feel like oppression coming from a man. This is because what we are really dealing with here is power--the power of executives, who are often men, to inflict attitudes toward dress, professionalism and sexuality on subordinates, who are often women.
Yet, learning the dress code of a workplace is a normal part of professional growth. When male managers avoid communicating with women employees, women are left unaware of unwritten rules.
For a free copy of the ebook, Decoding the Executive Women's Dress Code, go to: www.ExecutiveWoman.info
Anytime
you put energy into a person or activity without the other
person/people committed to the process, you are wasting your energy;
more specifically, you're dressing dead people. So, how many dead
people have you tried to dress in your life?
Do you part your hair the way Superman does or on the right as Clark prefers?
In recent years a pseudoscience non-verbal indicator has emerged around the theory that left-partedness signals leadership potential, while parting on the right suggests something a little off-kilter.
"It's difficult for right-parters to be leaders," says John Walter, a 49-year-old systems engineer at New York's Marymount Manhattan College. Walter is credited with creating the theory three decades ago after he discovered only a few U.S. presidents parted their hair on the right.
According to the theory, left-parters attract attention to the left side of their of their face, which conveys left-brain functions like logic (as Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway and Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo do), while right-parters come across as creative but also mysterious. Hair-part aficionados are abuzz over whether right-parter John McCain stands a chance of winning the 2008 presidential race.
Women managers bring uniquely feminine styles, motivations and skills to professional life and have learned to use some of their strengths -- like empathy, adaptability and strong verbal skills -- to their advantage. Unfortunately, another typically feminine characteristic, self-doubt, often follows women into the workplace.
"I don't know whether we're wired this way or taught it, but women want to please and to fit in. We care what people think and don't want to rock the boat, so we wind up underselling ourselves," says Ann Hambly, president of Prudential Asset Resources, a unit of Prudential Financial, in Dallas. "I've seen other women do it, and I've seen myself do it."
Ms. Hambly is working to eliminate this tendency. Meanwhile, she compensates for it by talking in the facts-and-figures language she knows her largely male team prefersand by taking on challenging assignments that demonstrate she isn't timid or risk averse.
Still, self-doubt and unwillingness to be aggressive can result in lower earnings, diminished stature and missed opportunities, even for women who are qualified and enthusiastic managers.
Source: Don't Let These Common Traps Keep You From Getting Ahead, The Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2008
Since the culture at most companies has been shaped over time by male executives, women are at a disadvantage when it comes to gender-based differences in communication styles.
A report, "Women and Men in U.S. Corporate Leadership: Same Workplace, Different Realities?", by Catalyst found that 81% of women said that "adopting a style with which male managers are comfortable" is an important or very important strategy to advance one's career.
Communication styles rooted in childhood training or unconscious beliefs can be tough to change. A first step is becoming aware of how you talk at work.
Our perceptions represent the way we see the world works and they also strongly influence those we live and work with.
Catalyst asked 296 executives of both genders to rate by percentage the effectiveness of female and male leaders on ten different leadership behaviors. Both genders said men are better at networking, influencing upward and delegating. "Women as well as men perceive women leaders as better at caretaker behaviors and men as better at take-charge behaviors," says Ilene Lang, president of Catalyst. "These are perceptions, not the reality."
• It allows us to control impulses and select the most appropriate behaviors.
• It shows us how to avoid reacting in negative and potentially self-limiting ways.
• Knowing our strengths and limitations makes us more understanding of others.
• Gaining an understanding of issues reduces conflict in ourselvesand in others.
Working with an executive coachcan help you to be clear on the communication style at your level within the company and to confidently practice this style so you will be heard at work. Of course, you must agree to be coachablebefore deciding to work with a personal coach.
If you know women executives in your organization who need to become better and more creative leaders, suggest you point them toward: www.executivewoman.info
Today, it is no longer about the lack of a level playing field for womento successfully compete with men in the executive suite.
It's really about women executives not shooting themselves in the foot due to a lack of leadership capability. By developing effective leadership skills, from becoming more self-intelligent and emotional-intelligent to understanding how their behavior is perceived by their direct reports and peers, female executives can achieve success in the executive suite.
If leaders don't make smart judgment calls about people on their teams, or they manage them poorly, then there is no way they can set a sound direction and strategy for their department, business unit or enterprise, nor can they deal effectively with crises.
The most critical knowledge a woman executive needs is self-intelligence or an awareness of her personal beliefs/assumptions, values, guiding principles and vision. And being emotionally intelligent about knowing how the people in the organization will respond, adapt and execute matters. Women executives can also fail when they lack contextual knowledge due to not knowing the territory; commonly referred to as the corporate culture. This knowledge gap can lead to difficult problems from direct reports to the board of directors.
Carly Fiorina's short stay as CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP) is an example of not really getting the HP culture. According to Warren G. Bennis of the University of Southern
California, "She leaned too heavily on change and failed to celebrate the tradition of HP."
Julie Roehm, a high-flying marketing executive at Wal-Mart who was fired in December 2006, acknowledged mistakes, among them moving too quickly and not adapting to her new workplace. Her perceptions painted a picture of warring fiefdoms and a passive-aggressive culture that was hostile to outsiders. Wal-Mart, she says, "would rather have had
a painkiller [than] taken the vitamin of change." What has she learned? "The importance of culture. It can't be underestimated."
Most women promoted to general management roles don't have a mentor or coach to help their perceptions to evolveand become a leader. Learning how to build relationships with peers, C-level superiors, key customers and major suppliers matters. Their behavior on-
the-job can come off more like a shop floor supervisor than a polished executive...and....the problem is they don't understand that's the way they are being perceived by their peers and direct reports.
In My Fair Lady, Henry Higgins laments, "Why can't a woman be more like a man?"
PROFESSOR HIGGINS:
Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historically fair.
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
Why can't a woman be like that?
Why does every one do what the others do?
Can't a woman learn to use her head?
Why do they do everything their mothers do?
Why don't they grow up, well, like their father instead?
Why can't a woman take after a man?
Men are so pleasant, so easy to please.
Whenever you're with them, you're always at ease.
Since the culture at most companies has been shaped over time by male executives, women are at a disadvantage when it comes to gender-based differences in communication styles. However, these cultural disadvantages can be reversed when women executives learn how to think and act in concert with the existing corporate culture by seeking the help of a mentor or executive coach (www.MentoringandCoaching.com).
If you know women executives in your organization who need to become better leaders, suggest you point them toward:
